Desert Rat and Salt Water

This week I was reminded of a story that Doen Sensei told me a few years ago.  He has repeated it a number of times since then.  There was a traveler in Iraq who was traveling through the desert.  He found himself stranded one night, about a mile from Baghdad.  This was at a time when Baghdad was a great center of civilization; there were wonderful libraries, works of art, and pleasures of many kinds.
As was the custom, any traveler on their way to Baghdad who had not reached it by nightfall and was stranded in the desert would be taken in by the desert people and offered food and drink, and so the visitor was invited into a family’s tent.  They talked, and at one point the man asked them what they thought of Baghdad.  “Why, we’ve never gone to Baghdad!  Why would we?” they responded.  “We have everything we need right here.  We have the most delicious food, and the finest drink.”
Later, they served food to the traveler.  It was desert rat, and it was rancid and salty.  The traveler asked for the “wonderful” drink, hoping their “finest” would wash away the taste of the rat.  But it was salt water.
The moral of the story is:  always see in your life if you are just one mile from Baghdad and living on rats and saltwater.
photo by jamesdale10